home made diffuse

ok, so im starting to think about doing portraits and i need to create a second light source, aside from my on camera flash. i'm thinking about using one of those yellow heavy duty work lights and i was wondering if there is any way to make some sort of diffuser very cheaply.

Be very careful, I assume that your heavy duty work light will be an incandescent type that will put out a lot of heat and any cheap diffuser would be likely to discolour, melt or even burst into flame. You can get special heat resistant sheets for hot lights, I think Lee Filters market some, much better to spend a little extra on the proper stuff than end up standing in the ashes of your studio. one advantage of the real thing is that you can get it in a colour that will match the colour temperature of your work light to your flash.

First of all, an on-camera flash is a poor choice for portraits...unless it's only for fill.

Secondly, work lights (the one you mention are halogen) are not the same color temperature as flash, so if you mix them, you will end up with weird colors.

If you want to forget about flash, you could use those lights, just keep all your lights the same type. As mentioned, those lights are very, very hot which makes them harder to diffuse (safely) and it also makes it hot for the model.

Here is a cheap and easy solution for now. They have new light bulbs out (the new florescent) They have ones that are daylight. around $6.00 ea. You can get deskl amps from wal-mart for 8.00 ea. These angled the right way make pretty nice portrait lights. here's a pic with a complete DIY setup.">">